Get felt here

Ha ha.  Yes, I made some more felt.  Some time ago I moved on from felting around stones to making flat felt, which was lovely and makes a good mat.  But it's two-dimensional and I need three dimensions!  Then a friend showed me some felt pods she'd been given, and I went straight home and looked up how to make them - I found this tutorial.  Here's a picture of one from the tutorial:

Felt pod by RosiePink

I dragged out my fleece and had a go, starting small in case things didn't work out quite as planned.  I cut a circle from some old bubble-wrappy-type packing (it had foam bonded to it so was quite stiff, which was good), and followed the tutorial step by step.  After the usual rubbing and rolling with warm water and olive oil soap, followed by cutting a hole (scary!), then more rubbing and hot water, I had my first felt pod!

I made it with green wool inside, and grey outside - I always like a pretty surprise inside a bag, so why not inside a felt pod.  My resist (the plastic inside) was a circle 10cm diameter, and the finished pod is about 8cm across and 5cm high. I cut the hole to one side, to make a little "nest" shape for keeping coins or jewellery in.  Later, I stitched some seed beads on for decoration.

The next pod had blue wool inside, and the third, pink wool.

The fourth pod is really the best so far.   I cut the hole centrally this time, and added more layers of grey wool before I began felting.  When fully felted, this one has turned out much more sturdy than the others, which feel a bit thin and may not hold their shape as well.  So for future pods I'm sticking to one layer of the inside colour, then two or even three layers of the outside colour.

Using more layers of wool seems to limit the shrinking that happens during felting, too, as the fourth pod is slightly bigger, even though it was made on the same resist.

Now these small pods are working out well, I'm going to try making a slightly bigger version.  Felty Christmas presents all round this year!